Documentaries

So awhile back I emailed the Los Angeles County Fire Department and asked about doing a documentaries series there. They emailed me back and told me to contact my local representative. I called a few times but no answer. So I went down to a nearby fire station and asked them. They asked me a few questions and gave me (another) number to call. Said that the people I will talk to just want to know if it's personal or school work, if I want to make money off it, what exactly I would want to do and so on. So far none of them said I can't do it so there's hope.

My goal for this project is to document for 5 years.

A project I am going to start on is one based off Larry Sultan's The Valley. I met another P1 and turns out he produces fetish porn. He agreed to me tagging along and documenting the shoots. Sadly he films in an area about an hour (and a half with traffic) away. Due to bus and trains routes, it only makes sense to drive. But I only have my permit, so I have to wait until I get my license. After I get porn checked off, I'll have TV, movie, YouTube and possibly radio and podcast left. I want to show all the hard work that into all these form of entertainment.

My goal for this project is to finish within 10 years.

OMG, NAKED PEOPLE

I was clicking around on deviantART and ended up on a photo of a woman's butt. After favoriting it, I noticed two similar comments. First being "I don't see how butts count as art..." and the second one being "This website is for art only, NOT RAUNCHY SEXUAL CRAP!!" I replied to both comments saying that Robert Mapplethorpe is known for photographing nude men, Larry Sultan had a series of photographs taken on porn sets, and Helmut Newton currently has an exhibition at the Annenberg Space For Photography featuring photographs from his book Big Nudes.

But these type of comments got me thinking:
Why is it more socially accepted that the nude figure is only art if it is done by hand?

There are many famous paintings and sculptors of the nude figure and (most) people consider those art, yet if someone took a picture of someone in the same pose, (some of) those same people will view it as porn and smut. This is bullshit. It still takes a lot of work to take a good photo, regardless of what it's of. There's lighting to consider and perfect, composition, developing whether it's film or via photoshop, and so much more.


So remember: photography IS art

photo credit: Helmut Newton